POSTURE

The ability to communicate efficiently relies on the ability to understand others’ mental states. Different cues can be used to decode these mental states. Whereas emotional facial expressions (EFEs), mainly the basic ones (e.g., sadness, joy…), have been extensively explored as cues, the role of dynamic postures has yet to be better investigated. The term dynamic postures refers to how the positions and movements of the whole body (including the head and hands, but excluding EFEs) are used to deliver nonverbal information.

The main objective of this project is to determine the respective roles of dynamic postures and EFEs in nonverbal communication, focusing on both basic and more socially complex mental states (e.g., pride, power…), much less probed in the literature. More specifically, we want to determine whether dynamic postures simply serve to reinforce EFEs, or supply specific additional information, and whether these cues are processed similarly by all genders. By combining our expertise in motion capture, computation (LICIIS, URCA), restitution (ICUBE UNISTRA) and experimental psychology (C2S), we plan to answer this research question and provide an open access database of dynamic postures, with or without emotional facial expressions, that can be implemented in virtual reality on expressive avatars.